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“I didn’t say that all those things had happened here, or recently.”

“When else would they have happened? Are you not with Lady Harcourt—the elder Lady Harcourt—all of the time?”

“Oh, dear.”

Olive waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry, no one else knows. As I said, it’s only in retrospect that I guessed the identity of your paramour.”

“He’s not my paramour!”

“And the gentlemen themselves are not that smart when it comes to these things,” Olive said, apparently having decided to ignore Diantha’s protest.

“What things?”

“Sentimental matters. Romantic matters. What I am saying, Diantha, is that your secret is safe with me, and, I should think, safe in general. And by the by, don’t let questions of timing affect your plans. I can sleep in Lady Harcourt’s room anytime you like.”

“You would do that?” Diantha had been assuming that she would have to try to enlist Polly again.

“Of course!” Olive brushed her hands together as if dispensing with a pesky logistical matter. “All right, so you want to undertake intimate relations with Simon. Do you know how it works?”

“Yes, I know how it works!” Diantha laughed, and Olive did, too.

“So your hesitation is not of a technical variety.”

“No, it’s more that …”

“What does Simon have to say about all this?”

“He says nothing. In fact, he was the one who halted our last encounter. This is the source of my discomfiture. If more is to happen, I shall have to be the instigator.”

“Ah. So you are asking me if you ought to proposition Simon?”

“I suppose I am.”

“I think you should.”

“Truly?”

“If everything you have told me is true, I don’t see a downside. You want to do it. You’re not concerned about any future you might be compromising. We know he would be discreet.”

“Do we?” She thought so. He had kept her confidence until now, but that was a matter of him holding his tongue when it came to Diantha’s affairs. If they were to lie together, it would be his affair, too, no? Diantha was talking to Olive about it. Did Simon not have the right to talk to his friends about it if he so chose?

“Of course we do!” Olive exclaimed. “Simon is the most upstanding of gentlemen. In fact, I think the only potential obstacle to your plan is that he’ll be so upstanding, he’ll refuse to do it.”

“That is a distinct possibility.”

If Olive only knew what else Simon was too upstanding to do.

“I imagine he was caught off guard last time,” Olive mused.

“I think we both were.”

“Right. So he’ll be prepared this time. He’ll be ready to defend the castle.”

“Defend the castle!” Diantha laughed. Just a little at first, and she tried to smother it, but the notion of Lord Marsden fortifying a castle against an invading horde—and the invading horde was her? Well, it was too amusing.

Olive joined, and soon the two of them were shaking with laughter. Olive laughed so hard, she tipped over.

Diantha recovered herself first. And, again, the thought that had been haunting her rose: How am I going to leave this?